Christmas at Baker Street
by AuroreMoriarty
Summary: After Irene Adler left with her precious phone, Sherlock needed to change his mind. As Christmas got closer and closer, John tried to get Sherlock involved in the celebration.


It was a rather calm day. John was sitting in kitchen, eating the breakfast Mrs Hudson just prepared for him. Sherlock was in the living room, looking in the newspaper for some new case. He needed to change his mind after Irene Adler disappeared of her own house, leaving him confuse and in a haze. He had been outwitted and he did not like that. It seemed that nothing was worthy of his interest as he put the newspaper on the table and dove into his mind palace. John looked up to the wall in front of him. He could see the calendar hanging there.

"What? Is it…?" He took his phone, lightened up the screen to see the date. "Damn. It's December already." He cleaned up his stuff then went to his flatmate. The later had his eyes closed, his elbows upon the arms of his chair, his hands in front of his nose, only touching each other via the tip of his fingers.

"Sherlock, where have you put the Christmas stuff?" No answer. "Sherlock." He still did not answer. John gave a little kick in his friend's nearest foot. "You hear me?

"Yes and that's why I can't focus. So would you be so kind to shut up?" John gritted his teeth and breathed deeply.

"Just tell me where they are."

"As we don't have any Christmas decorations, I can't tell you where they are."

"You must be joking."

"I don't celebrate it so I don't see the point of having that."

"Because…I won't argue with you about that. We're going to celebrate Christmas this year, in our flat, with our friends."

"Please…"

"No! So stand up and take your coat."

After arguing a few minutes ("why should I go?", "You know that I don't believe in God, don't you? Why should I celebrate it?", "Why don't you celebrate it with your sister and leave me alone?", "Stop calling _The Grinch_!"…), John finally managed to drag Sherlock to the closest decoration shop. They held to the Tree aisle. John tried to choose a proper tree to decorate while Sherlock was just hoping that shopping session was soon over. None of the trees were worthy of being placed in Baker Street (either too small, too tall, or too expensive…) so John decided to go for some fairy lights and tree garlands.

Buying the decoration was only the first part of John's problem involving Sherlock in the Christmas celebration. And we may add "the easiest". Then came the decoration part and Sherlock, the man who decided to that it was a good idea to decorate the living room with a bison skull with headphone on, the man who decided to put a human skull on the chimney, was not really qualified for that job. Still, John did not want to do it all by his self. He put on his Christmas playlist to get the job done.

" _Last Christmas_? Really, John?"

"That's a classic!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm putting the fairy lights."

"I can see that but why are they resting on the trash on the desk?"

"John, there're samples for an important experiment and –"

"Why don't you just clean that up and put the lights on the mirror?" John interrupted Sherlock in the middle of his explanation.

Sherlock tried to argue but John gave him the "Don't mess with me I was a soldier, I've killed people" look. So Sherlock followed the orders.

Once the flat was neat and full of Christmas' spirit, John and Sherlock sat down in their armchairs for the most difficult part: the invitation.

"It already looks like Santa's house, I think it's enough. We don't need to be around people."

"It's the whole point of Christmas: being with the ones you care about, you love. Who do you want to invite?"

"No one."

"Okay. That was nice… Let's invite Mrs Hudson. And Lestrade. He told me he wouldn't spend his Christmas holiday with his wife this year. I think she's going to visit her sister or something like that. Janett, of course."

"Who?"

"My girlfriend."

Sherlock squinted in attempt to remember.

"I introduced her to you last week, come on. You couldn't have already forget."

"I don't bother remembering your girlfriends' name. There's no need in that."

John closed his eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath to calm the urge to punch Sherlock.

"Next. Molly?" Sherlock sighed but did not say a word. John took that as "yes".

"And Mycroft."

"No."

"Come on, Sherlock, he's your brother. You can't not invite him for Christmas!"

"Yes I can and I will. You said that was about people we care about. Besides, Mycroft hates Christmas as much as I do."

"Fine."

After the tough negotiation, John did not have the energy to tell Sherlock that he would have to find presents to all the guests. The look of surprise of his face when he came back home to a room full of wrapped boxes was priceless. After the initial shock, the idea of what Sherlock might call a "present" came to his mind and he started to wonder if he shouldn't have gone shopping with him.

As Sherlock did not want to answer his questions about the gifts – he was quite touchy on the subject – John decided to investigate, ready to exchange the presents. After scanning, lifting, weighting up the gifts and looking for the bills, he had to admit that it seemed decent gifts. Nevertheless he asked Mrs Hudson if she knew anything about Sherlock's recent purchases.

"Don't worry, dear. I gave him advice and suggestions, then pretended it was his idea."

Relieved, John focused on his own – _late_ \- Christmas shopping. He had always thought that finding gifts for friends or family was not that hard. Before Harry's problem with alcohol, he used to buy her a good bottle of whatever was her favourite beverage at that time. Knowing that her sister could not make it for Christmas, he could not help but to be eased as he did not want to encourage her addiction.

After hours wandering from shops to shops, he finally found a present for everyone: a perfume for Janette, a cooking book for Mrs Hudson, a bottle of scotch for Lestrade, for Molly a scarf (they once had an argument about who was the best Doctor: John thought that the Ninth was the best while Molly held that it was the Fourth), a kid's spy display for Mycroft, just to mess with him, and an ugly Christmas sweater for Sherlock. Though he initially wanted to wrap all the presents himself, the memory of the slog that was the last time he wrapped a present made him choose the easy way and ask at the shop for someone to do it.

Laden with sachets of gifts, John crossed the threshold of the apartment, grumping about the bags, the difficulties of carrying them and crossing the door and the fact that Sherlock, though he was in the living, did not move an inch to help him. A normal day at 221b. From the outer corner of his eyes, John saw that Sherlock was watching TV, a usual past-time for the consulting detective. Thus, grumpy as he was, John did not take care of not making any noise. Actually, he was as loud as he could. Then, having anything else to do, John sat down in front of the TV too. Once the commercials were over, the movie started again. In a blink of an eye, John recognised the movie.

"Oh Sherlock. Not _Love actually_ " he sighed.

"Come on, John. That's a classic"

Sherlock smirked while John gave him a dirty look as he fetched the newspaper.


End file.
